MediaFile

New colors, video camera, price cuts. Whatever. The Apple show belonged to Steve Jobs.

So how did he look? Rail thin, as you can see from this picture (see below or click here for a bunch more shots of the 54-year old chief executive). That shouldn’t come as a surprise, given he’s recovering from a liver transplant.

Even looking frail, however, his presence pumped up the crowd. “Steve Jobs making an appearance was definitely a pleasant surprise,” said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Kaufman Brothers. Another analyst, Brian Marshall of Broadpoint AmTech added, “I was surprised to see Steve. It’s great to see that he’s doing well.”

Here is a chronology of Jobs’ health issues:

2004:

August: Jobs announces he underwent successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas. He says it was a rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor.

2005:

June: Jobs mentions the cancer in a commencement address at Stanford University. “This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades,” he says.
Read the whole speech and see the video here.

The New York Times headline on Apple’s Macworld convention is so snappy that it almost frees me of the obligation to write this blog entry today:

Want to copy iTunes Music? Go Ahead, Apple says.

Fortunately, the Times couldn’t fit this other part into the headline, giving us something to quote:

Beginning this week, three of the four major music labels – Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group – will begin selling music through iTunes without digital rights management software, or D.R.M., which controls the copying and use of digital files. The fourth, EMI, was already doing so.

Apple investors and Apple fans heaved a collective sigh of relief on Monday morning after CEO and founder Steve Jobs finally made an attempt to end rumors that he’s on his deathbed.

Jobs sent a letter to his followers, who will be gathering at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco in his absence, explaining his recent weight-loss has been due to a hormonal imbalance.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority. Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

No matter how hard the PR execs try, Apple can’t help but court controversy when it comes to the health of its leader Steve Jobs.

Ever since it was revealed he had a successful operation for pancreatic cancer, Apple fans and investors have been very skittish about any hint that Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, founder and visionary, might have to step down due to bad health. Jobs’ recent public appearances haven’t helped as he has looked unusually thin.

So news that Jobs would not be making his now annual keynote appearance at next month’s Macworld show sent shares down nearly 7 percent on Wednesday.